I was pleased to see Neil Moran's article on the antiphon Crucem tuam in last year's volume of Plainsong and Medieval Music (‘A second medial mode Palestinian chant in Old Roman, Beneventan and Frankish sources’, PMM, 19/1 (April 2010), 1–19). Taken in tandem with his earlier article ‘The Chant “Crucem tuam” in the Byzantine, Slavonic and Latin Recension’ (Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario, 5 (1980), 35–48), Moran's close comparative study of this antiphon in various traditions provides important material to all of us who are interested in the relationships between Eastern and Western chant. I was also pleased to see that Moran cited an article of mine, ‘The Parapteres: Nothi or Not?’ (The Musical Quarterly, 67 (1982), 32–59), at several points, but I am afraid that his treatment of it requires commentary in at least two instances.

First, although I doubt that it was his intent, Moran seems to impute to me a view that I do not hold, and that I did not express in my article. On page 15 of his study, Moran makes the statement: ‘He [Atkinson] suggests that “the term parapter originated in the West”.’ Moran follows this a sentence later, though, with the statement: ‘Atkinson seeks support for the view that the medial modes originated in the West in the legend that Charlemagne added four extra tones to the normal eight’. The problem here is that while I did state that it was likely that the term parapter originated in the West, I did not say that the extra tones – Moran's medial modes, referred to variously as parapteres, circumaequales, moesi, mesi, or medii toni in Western sources – originated in the West. My conclusion about this matter, not included by Moran, was the following:

A second concern of mine is Moran's assertion that I overlooked a piece of evidence that might contradict one of my statements about the parapteres. On page 18 of his study Moran writes:

Moran continues:

He provides the following translation from an article by Oliver Gerlach:

Underscoring the import of this passage for his own thesis, Moran goes on to say that ‘the chant Dum clamarem … is mentioned immediately after this formula as an example of this mode’.

I had cited the Alia musica in my own article (41, n. 22) for one of the passages in which it mentions extra tones. The extra tones are not mentioned in the passage Moran cites, however, which is one reason I did not cite it myself. There is more to say about this passage, though, that to my mind calls into question the conclusions Moran draws from it and its implications for my own work.

After correcting the errors in the Latin text as given in Moran's article (‘Sequidem’ should be ‘Siquidem’; ‘a lichanos meson’ should be ‘ad lichanos meson’), I would translate the passage describing AIANEOEANE as follows:

Immediately following this passage in the treatise is a sentence, not included by Moran, in which the author cites the introit Confessio et pulchritudo as an example of what he has just discussed: ‘Quam finalem primam tangit gradalis antiphona quae est Confessio et pulchritudo, et sic usque ad 3 de 12 ascendit, ac deinde ad finalem suam redit’ (The gradual antiphon Confessio et pulchritudo touches this final [E] and then ascends to 3 from 12 [9:12=3:4, the interval of a diatessaron, presumably that extending from the lichanos meson, G, to the trite diezeugmenon, c] and then returns to its final). The music of Confessio et pulchritudo does indeed exemplify the focal pitches in the tonal space described by the intonation formula AIANEOEANE.Footnote ² It starts on the final, E (hypate meson), then descends via liquescence to the subfinalis, D (lichanos hypaton), before ascending to G (lichanos meson) then c (trite diezeugmenon) and ultimately returning to the final.

Only in the sentence after this does the author of this part of the Alia musica mention the introit Dum clamarem – the Gregorian one, not the Old-Roman one Moran discusses in his article – along with Cognovi Domine, and he does so to point out that both begin with a semitone: ‘Quo etiam incipit semitonio intenso antiphona Cognovi Domine et Dum clamarem ad Dominum’. Indeed, both start on E, then move immediately to F. Nowhere does the author suggest that Confessio et pulchritudo, Dum clamarem, and Cognovi Domine are unusual; rather, he takes them as typical of the second authentic mode. Moreover, there is no mention here of parapteres, circumaequales, moesi, medii toni or any of the other designations for the extra tones or modes. Hence I must repeat what I originally wrote: ‘They [the parapteres or medii toni] are not discussed in terms of species of diapason, diapente, or diatessaron’ (‘The Parapteres’, 33).

My reservations about Moran's treatment of my own work notwithstanding, I nonetheless want to thank him for an important contribution to our study of the relationships between Eastern and Western chant. I hope that he will follow this with similar studies of other chants in the medial modes, and that his work will inspire others to look into this repertoire as well.